


Will The World Remember You When You Fall, Could It Be Your Death Means Nothing At All?

by creatureofhobbit



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-11
Updated: 2013-09-11
Packaged: 2017-12-26 08:22:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/963730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatureofhobbit/pseuds/creatureofhobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night before the Quarter Quell, Chaff and Haymitch have one final night drinking together to Games gone by. As both prepare themselves for the rebellion, Chaff confides in Haymitch about his own Games.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Will The World Remember You When You Fall, Could It Be Your Death Means Nothing At All?

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Les Mis song Drink With Me, which was the inspiration for this fic.

Haymitch looked a little surprised to see Chaff at his door the night before the Seventy Fifth Hunger Games was due to begin.

“Don’t look so surprised,” Chaff began. “This has been our tradition pretty much since the year after you won, one of us going to each other’s rooms, toasting the tributes, singing the old drinking songs from each other’s district until Effie tells us to shut the hell up.” He broke off, knowing that it was unlikely that they would be doing any singing tonight.

“I’m just surprised they haven’t locked you all on your own floors,” Haymitch said as he took a sip of his white liquor.

“What trouble am I possibly going to get into for this?” Chaff asked. “I think the Capitol are a little more concerned about our little hand-holding stunt back there than they are about where I am tonight.”

“The stunt that you were very quick to join in with,” Haymitch pointed out. “Effie was saying that you never could stay out of a fight.”

“She still hates me, huh?” Chaff grinned as he put his feet up on Haymitch’s bedspread. “For someone who cares about time so much, she needs to realise when it’s time to let go of an old grudge.” At an earlier Hunger Games, after Chaff and Haymitch had been drinking, Chaff had collided with Effie, causing her to spill whatever she’d been eating all down herself. The time she’d needed to take to change her clothes had caused her to be late for the recap of the interviews or something like that, and Effie had made a bigger deal out of it than it warranted.

Haymitch laughed at the memory. “Katniss said something similar when the train broke down on the Victory Tour and Effie was making a big deal about the delay. But Effie does kind of have a point, though.”

“It was better that it was me,” Chaff explained. “Dock’s still so young,” referring to the previous victor whose name had originally been pulled out and for whom Chaff had volunteered. “He’s got his girlfriend, his whole life ahead of him. What do I have to look forward to apart from these annual meet ups getting drunk with you?” Haymitch knew without being told that Chaff didn’t really look forward to the Games. On another drunken night, both had admitted how hard they found it, going into this, mentoring the tributes, starting out so full of hope that one of their tributes might actually win, since they had succeeded themselves, then feeling more and more despondent as they watched one tribute after another die.

The usual mocking smile was gone from Chaff’s face now as he said “There are some tributes that really get to you.”

_  
One Year Ago:_

_No one liked to see a twelve year old get picked, and there was a stony silence when Rue’s name had been called. Chaff could see a lot of unhappiness on the faces of the older residents at the calling of her name and the lack of volunteers. The other girls in District 11 just looked relieved that they hadn’t been the one picked. Thresh had accepted his fate with a grim stoicism, in fact his sister, Sage, and his grandmother had appeared more upset than he did. Chaff understood why; he had known Thresh’s parents, although not well, and the circumstances of the accident which had caused their deaths had almost torn that family apart. It had taken a long time before Chaff had managed to get a word out of either of them on the way to the Capitol, but when he did, he had really come to appreciate Rue’s sense of humour, and to respect Thresh for choosing to turn his back on the suggested alliance with the Careers._

_As Katniss had predicted, Haymitch had indeed groaned when she and Rue had teamed up. But Chaff had been the one to convince him that the alliance wasn’t a bad thing, that Rue was so easily underestimated and people were too quick to count her out, but she obviously had something about her to get that far. She’d got the better of one of the Careers during training, surely that had to be a skill after Haymitch’s own heart? Over time, he’d come to agree, to see Rue’s potential._

_Chaff had held his breath and watched as Thresh had chosen to spare Katniss’s life as thanks for what she had done for Rue. He could only imagine what the Gamemakers had said as they watched that; by sparing the life of a tribute from another district, Thresh had taken their rules and shattered them into a thousand pieces. He could have had no way of knowing, of course, that District 11 had rioted the day that they had seen Katniss cover Rue with flowers, but Chaff suspected that Thresh may well have acted the same way even if he had known. When the Gamemakers had sent in the storm which had eventually claimed Thresh’s life, Chaff had known that they had rigged this in Cato’s favour, that they had done this to punish Thresh for breaking their precious rules. Katniss had said that she had respected Thresh for his refusal to play the Games on anyone’s terms other than his own; that had been what eventually cost him his life. And Chaff had to agree with Katniss; he’d respected that too. Thresh was playing on his own terms, and if things had happened differently, he really could have won it._

_And if anyone understood why Thresh had reacted in that way, it was Chaff. He knew only too well what it was to lose his district partner, to feel that he had failed to protect her. Chaff had not told Thresh about this, although given that Celandine’s brother still continued to bring it up publicly 29 years on, Thresh may well have heard some version of events anyway._

_Although there had not officially been talk of a rebellion at this point, if Chaff had had to name the turning point where he knew he had to rebel against the Capitol, he would have chosen that moment._

“See? Effie was right,” Haymitch laughed when Chaff said this. “You really can’t stay out of a fight.”

“It was Gloss who couldn’t stay out of it when I authorised you to give Katniss that bread that had been intended for Rue,” Chaff reminded him, taking a swig of his drink. Despite the fact that it had not really been anything to do with him, Gloss had been quick to jump in and point out that it had never been done before that tributes were given sponsors’ gifts from another district. Chaff had turned round and said that he didn’t care if it had been done before or not, his district wanted it, he was happy to authorise it and Gloss was just pissed about it because of Marvel and Glimmer. He knew when he’d said it that he’d gone too far even before Gloss went for both Chaff and Haymitch, and Finnick Odair had had to step in to break it up. However, most of the other mentors didn’t seem to have had that problem with what he had said. When Gloss realised that he wasn’t getting any support from any other mentors bar Cashmere, he’d backed off, at least in public, but Chaff had later been passing his quarters, heard lots of crashing and later seen one of the Avoxes taking what appeared to be the remains of broken furniture out of the room to dispose of. “You know what? I never thought I’d actually feel sorry for a Career, but it’s gotta be tough for Gloss and Cashmere this year, competing against each other.” He passed the bottle back to Haymitch. “It’s happened enough times that family members of victors have been reaped, but I can’t ever remember brothers and sisters being in the same Games before. They must be hoping that it’s not gonna come down to the two of them.” 

“But it isn’t gonna come down to them,” Haymitch growled.

“You and I know that, but they don’t,” Chaff pointed out. “Far as the Careers are concerned, they’re just playing by the rules of the Games.”

Chaff watched as Haymitch took a long swig from the bottle then banged it down rather harder on the table than was strictly necessary. Crap, he thought, remembering Haymitch’s games. That had been the last thing Maysilee Donner had said to Haymitch before ending their alliance, right before those birds had finished her off.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to bring back those memories.”

“I see it every damn night in my nightmares, Chaff,” Haymitch snapped. “It’s not you that brought it back.”

“You don’t talk about your Games, Haymitch,” Chaff hesitantly began. “I don’t know why I never realised that before. It’s always been the drinking songs, the crazy-ass ideas the stylists have come up with for the tributes each year, wondering who was gonna win in any given year. We’ve always talked bullshit, but rarely about anything serious. Maybe it’s time we started.” He didn’t say “while we still have the chance”, but he was thinking it.

“And what do you want me to talk about, Chaff?” Haymitch demanded, taking another swig. “Do you want me to talk about how I watched Maysilee die? Or how they took my parents, my brother, my girlfriend from me, all because I didn’t play by their stupid rules?” With a sweeping movement of his arm, Haymitch knocked the bottle off the table; if Chaff had tried, he’d never have been able to say how he managed to catch it in his one good hand.

“Sorry,” Haymitch’s anger was over almost as soon as it had exploded. “I caught them watching my Games earlier. Katniss and Peeta. I didn’t realise it would affect me like it did, and I don’t think they did either. You know they tend not to show that one when they’re showing the old repeats.”

“And I know why,” Chaff replied. “The Capitol don’t want to be reminded of how you got the better of them by using their force field as a weapon, and Katniss managed to do that.” 

__  
One Year Ago:  
Chaff still remembered the way Haymitch had reacted when all the mentors had sat there watching the denouement of the 74th Hunger Games, when it had just been announced that the new rule had been revoked and only one winner could be allowed, only for Katniss and Peeta to threaten to swallow the nightlock and then both to be declared victors. There had been mayhem among the victor/mentors as that was announced; Finnick had rushed forward to shake Haymitch’s hand, Mags had said something which she didn’t need Finnick to translate as congratulations. Brutus had briefly mumbled something to Haymitch and then turned and walked out, but that was understandable, he had been Cato’s mentor after all. Woof had raised his glass to Haymitch, Blight had patted him on the back, and even the surly Johanna Mason had forced a smile. Chaff had been the one to notice that Haymitch wasn’t smiling. 

_“What’s the matter?” he’d asked._

_But Haymitch didn’t even look up at Chaff. “Oh, sweetheart,” he whispered, “what the hell have you done?”_

_And Chaff finally understood. “She made the Capitol look like fools, just like you did all those years ago.”_

_Haymitch nodded. “And I don’t know if I can save her from what might happen to her. Peeta, he gets it. He doesn’t need to act because he’s already there. But I don’t know if Katniss will be able to pull it off. No, she has to pull it off. I’ll have to talk to her, to make her see that the only defence she has against Snow is to convince him that she was so madly in love that she couldn’t bear to be without Peeta.”_

_“So the same thing that happened to you doesn’t happen to her.” Chaff knew that Katniss had a younger sister, he’d seen the reapings and knew that Katniss had volunteered for her. “I understand now.”_

_Haymitch plastered a big smile on his face for the benefit of Enobaria, who was approaching._

_“You can do it, Haymitch, if anyone can.” Chaff whispered. “Now come on, let’s get out there. You got two tributes safely home, which is more than some of these guys have in a while. And you can keep them alive, get them back to District 12. About time someone put an end to the Careers’ winning streak.” Haymitch nodded, rejoined the mentors, accepted the praise that they were heaping on him. Chaff knew that he was the only person to whom Haymitch would ever have confided that, and knew that it was best that he never brought it up again. Up until that moment, Chaff had stuck to that vow._

“I always knew you were the one to watch in those Games, you know, right from when Caesar first interviewed you. What was it you said, something about it not making a lot of difference that there were twice as many tributes that year because they were all equally as stupid?”

Haymitch forced a smile. “Something like that.”

“One of my tributes said straight away that you were going to be an ass when we watched the recap of that,” Chaff smiled at the memory before the smile was immediately wiped off his face when he realised he could no longer remember the name of the tribute in question. “But I could tell from that moment that you were smart, that if anyone was going to do well, it was going to be you.”

“And where did it get me?” Haymitch demanded. “I was nothing in District 12 before that. Just a kid from the Seam, destined for the mines like every other kid I knew. But I was as happy then as it was possible to be. I had my parents, my brother, my girlfriend. And yeah, so I had my home in the Victor’s Village, I had all the glory that came with that, I had everything I could have wanted, instead of the one thing I really did want, my family back. What is all this worth, all of it?” This time Chaff wasn’t as fortunate; when Haymitch gestured with his arm, the bottle fell to the floor and smashed. Luckily, by this point they had drunk most of it anyway, and even more luckily they had more bottles in the room. Chaff went and opened another one, wondering as he did so whether this was really the smartest idea.

Haymitch barely seemed to have noticed what he had done. “You know, I’ve forgotten what it’s like to sleep through the night without having some kind of nightmare about seeing them standing in front of me, telling me it’s all my fault, or seeing Maysilee die in front of me all over again without being able to stop it. You know that pin was Maysilee’s originally? The mockingjay.”

Chaff hadn’t recognised it, but now that he knew, it explained why Haymitch had argued so hard with the Gamemakers when they’d threatened to confiscate it from Katniss, claiming she might be able to use it as a weapon. Chaff couldn’t see it himself, knew there were a lot more effective weapons in the arena that could be used without needing to resort to that. But if Glimmer hadn’t known that the ring that was confiscated from her could be used as a poisoned weapon, then Chaff was a mutt. It might not have been possible to prove anything, but there was something about her that made him sure she knew.

“Her niece is a friend of Katniss, she gave it to her.” Haymitch continued. “Surprised they didn’t try and take it off her this time around. It gave me a bit of a shock when I first saw it again on Katniss, but I don’t think she realised. She probably just thought I was drunk again.”

“And whatever could have given her that idea?” Chaff attempted to joke, but Haymitch was in no mood for that.

“The same thing that might give her the same idea about you,” Haymitch replied. “Since we’ve talked about my Games, what about yours? Are you thinking about yours right now?”

Chaff’s Games had only been about five years before Haymitch’s, so he would have seen them, although he may not have remembered much. The Capitol wouldn’t have had the same problems with showing Chaff’s victory as they did with Haymitch’s, since he hadn’t broken any rules, or shown up the Capitol in any way.

He’d just betrayed himself.

_  
Thirty Years Ago:_

_If anyone ever asked Chaff why he had opted not to have his hand replaced after he won the Games, but to keep his stump, he made some joke about not wanting to be a mutt, created by the Capitol. It usually got a laugh when he said it, and no one ever questioned it._

_Nobody had known the reason why he had really decided not to have a new hand – because he wanted the stump at the end of his arm to remind him of the day when he had been a coward, when he had chosen to save himself._

_Seeder had tried to tell him afterwards not to blame himself. There could only ever be one victor of the Hunger Games; at this time the idea that two from the same district could ever win had not been thought of, and even if it had, they would probably still have pulled the same stunt that they did on Katniss and Peeta. One person had to win, and why should it not be Chaff? While Chaff had conceded that, he still wondered whether he should really have won at all. Celandine’s screams had haunted his nightmares every night since she had died; torn to pieces by the big cat mutt that the Gamemakers had planted in the arena. The mutt had gone for Chaff first, but he had managed to escape, although it had torn his arm from him in the process. At the time, he had only thought of his own safety, of outrunning the mutt._

_Seeder had again tried to tell him afterwards that that wasn’t a bad thing. He had to play to win. But this was something that Chaff didn’t think she would understand. She’d told him that the year she won, her district partner had been killed in the bloodbath on the first day, and she hadn’t formed an alliance with anyone else. From what she had said about her Games, her strategy had been something similar to Thresh’s – she’d kept out of the way of the Careers and kept herself to herself. That had been one of the years when the Gamemakers had felt that things weren’t exciting enough and they’d had to create some drama, and they’d destroyed the Careers’ stash of food in a flood. Seeder had wondered afterwards if being from District 11, where it was usual not to have enough to eat, had been to her advantage here, helping her survive longer than the Careers, who had always been well fed._

_She couldn’t easily understand Chaff’s guilt at not having gone back in there to try and save Celandine._

_He’d thought she was right behind him running out of the jungle. That was what he had tried to tell himself afterwards, even as he kicked himself for not having made sure, not having tried to grab hold of her arm and drag her through the jungle. There must have been time; he could have done it. But Chaff had focused on saving himself instead of going back for Celandine._

_When he’d got himself a good distance clear, and realised that Celandine wasn’t following him, he did think he should turn round and go back for her, only to be met with the sound of two cannons, one right after the other. It wasn’t her, he tried to tell himself. There were other tributes; that had to have been someone else who had died. He ran, raced back towards the jungle, hoping to spot Celandine on her way out, only to be greeted by the Career pack from 1, 2 and 4 instead. They’d shot the mutt, the guy from 4 had it draped over his shoulders. Great, Chaff thought. He hadn’t even dared to attempt that, and now here was this ass wearing a cocky smirk across his face and carrying it._

_“Looking for your little friend?” Emerald, the girl from District 1, had smirked. “We just saw the hovercraft pick up what was left of her about five minutes ago. It had to make two trips to get her. Wouldn’t have happened if you’d gone in there to help her instead of running away. But you didn’t do that, because you’re a coward.”_

_Chaff had snapped her neck almost before he knew what he had done. It wasn’t until later that he had stopped to question whether Emerald herself would have gone back to save her own district partner, or any of their other Career allies. Probably not, if he was honest. These alliances were always temporary, until they were the last ones standing and then they’d turn on each other. But at the time, he didn’t think of it like that. All he heard was Emerald’s comment that he was a coward. And it was all he heard as he made his way through the remaining tributes, a spear to the stomach for one in a move later replicated by Marvel, an arrow through the heart of another. He’d been surprised by the sound of the fanfare confirming that he had won; by this point it was no longer about winning for him, but about avenging Celandine, about proving to himself as well as to the world that he was no coward._

_Maybe he’d even have allowed himself to believe it if it hadn’t been for his encounter with Celandine’s brother Root, not long after he got back. “The girl from District 1 was right,” he had taunted Chaff in the middle of the square. “You could have gone back for her, and you didn’t. You are a coward.” Lots of people had heard him, and there were some who believed it. Celandine and Root’s family were powerful in District 11; once they started the story, it had stuck, and there were still some in District 11 even now who believed that Chaff should not have won, that he was the coward that should have tried harder to save Celandine._

_He had never admitted to them that a large part of him agreed._

“So there you have it,” Chaff concluded his story. “That’s why I wouldn’t let them recreate my hand. Because I wanted something to remind me not to be a coward. And when Effie made that comment about me never being able to stay out of a fight? That’s what that’s about, too. She wouldn’t know that. She can’t have been that old when my Games aired, she wouldn’t remember it. But there’s still a part of me, even now, that feels the need to prove that I’m not a coward. And maybe when Root’s watching us this week, he’ll understand that too.” Chaff had never spoken fully to anyone about this before, and felt relieved that he had finally got it off his chest, and that the person he had spoken about it to was Haymitch, the person he felt was most likely to understand.

“Someone who’s never been in the Games couldn’t really understand, Chaff,” Haymitch said as he took a long swallow of his drink. “You should have told me sooner. I’d have understood. And I’m sorry I pushed you on it.”

“I needed to tell someone,” Chaff turned away from Haymitch, took another long swig from his bottle of wine. “While I still have the chance.” He handed the bottle back to Haymitch. “You know, back to my first Games, I never really expected to make it back at first. Even back then, when I was here the night before the Games, part of me was mentally saying my goodbyes. Seeder was the one who helped me through that, and if we hadn’t got this plan to break Katniss and Peeta out of the arena, then I guess I’d be competing against her. Never thought I’d see that. A lot of us have been coming here for years. We’ve all built up friendships. It’s going to be horrible for everyone, not just Gloss and Cashmere. If Peeta hadn’t volunteered, it’d be you against me right now.”

Haymitch nodded. “I just told Katniss to remember who the enemy is. You, Seeder, Finnick, Mags, Beetee, Wiress, you’re all working together to keep her alive. I just hope she realises you’re not the enemy. But those who aren’t in on the plan, they’re not the enemy either. They’re playing to win, but what are they really apart from pawns in the Capitol’s games?”

“What are any of us?” Chaff asked. “All this about special status for victors, we all knew it was bull even before he announced the Quell. What he did to Finnick, to Johanna, to you...what are any of us to him and the Capitol apart from playthings? Well, maybe I’m being hard on a lot of the Capitol people. You saw the reaction out there. Even before Peeta went out there, they were all getting upset at the thought of it. But to him and his Gamemakers, that’s all we are to them. They’d say that they valued us, but they don’t. Seeder and I knew we had nothing to lose when we spoke about how President Snow could change the Quell if he really wanted to.”

“You got that right,” Haymitch snorted. “Plutarch admitted it to me earlier. Snow did switch the envelopes to fix the Quell so that Katniss would end up back in the arena. You and Seeder were closer to the mark than a lot of people knew when you asked that.”

“And Beetee was right as well, when he asked about whether it was legal,” Chaff went on. “They’d always said that victors were automatically exempt. Going by that, he has got a case to argue. But Snow would just argue back that who makes the rules, he and the Gamemakers do, and if they want to change them they just do it.”

Haymitch took another swallow of the bottle of wine, reached for another. “So are you ready?” he asked.

Chaff took a long swig from the bottle; Haymitch made no comment, knowing that it was most likely going to be his last. “Ready as I’ll ever be. Everyone knows what they have to do. Woof’s playing his part well; I saw him at training pretending he hadn’t got a clue what he was doing. If they get him, he’ll pull it off. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought he was going senile myself.”

“True, but it also meant that Katniss didn’t trust him as an ally.” Haymitch pointed out. “Although I gave Finnick that bracelet I’d been wearing. When Katniss sees it on him, she’ll know she can trust him.”

“We all know what we’re doing,” Chaff replied. “We do what we have to do to keep Katniss and Peeta alive. I hope Katniss is growing to trust me, and I know Peeta is. He’s a good kid, that one.”

Haymitch raised the rapidly dwindling bottle of wine. “A toast,” he began. “To Katniss and Peeta, and to the rebellion.”

“To all of us and the years we’ve shared as friends,” Chaff drank to this.

“To Effie, for always getting us there on time,” Haymitch snorted.

“To District 13,” Chaff continued.

“To all the tributes we mentored over the years,” Haymitch pulled a face as he drank to this one.

“To Celandine.” Chaff swallowed hard. “And what the hell, to Emerald, and to all the other tributes of that Games. They weren’t the evil I’d built them up to be in my mind at the time. They were nothing more than pawns after all.”

“And to you and me.” Haymitch finished the last of his bottle. “I can’t believe that this might be the last time we’re going to have a few drinks together before the Games.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Chaff replied. “But I think I’ve got my head around the idea. The rebellion needs to happen, and Katniss and Peeta need to be a part of it. And if I have to die for that to succeed, then that’s what has to happen. I understand that, and I can face it.”

“You know that’s the most serious I ever heard you?” Haymitch attempted to crack a smile. “But seriously, you don’t have anything to prove to anyone. Anyone who matters knows you’re not a coward, and by the end, everyone in Panem will know it, too.”


End file.
